


the scent of crystal grace

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: First and Commander: Namira Lavellan x Cullen Rutherford [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dalish Elves, Gen, The Herald of Andraste, The Hinterlands, early inquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 09:36:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12981264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: Namira Lavellan learns slowly what it is be the Herald of Andraste; a feat that at first seems insurmountable.





	the scent of crystal grace

Namira Lavellan feels herself a halla calf these days; clumsy and wrong-footed, constantly on the verge of stumbling.

She perches on a cliff’s edge in the Ferelden hinterlands, a chill mountain breeze causing her eyes to water.  The air smells of pine and a green she isn’t familiar with; later experience will inform her it is a mixture of fern and crystal grace, neither of which grow in the arid shadow of Sundermount. The scent is unfamiliar, another reminder of the way her world has shifted on a seismic scale.

Namira is uneasy around the others.  She has worked with dwarves and humans before, at least a little; her father’s trading cart often brought both in small numbers to their clan, eager to seek out the best Dalish crafts for resale in the Marcher cities.  But counting money for them as a girl before her magic, or keeping a watchful eye on them as a Keeper’s apprentice, is a different thing altogether than leading them.

Solas makes her uneasy in other ways.  He speaks little about his past, preferring tales of his journeys and studies; very little of it involves  _him_.  That alone is not what makes her hold him in reserve; it is common, after all, for Keepers and other guardians of wisdom to become repositories for the tales they hold, sometimes at the expense of their own stories.  

But he isn’t Dalish, and he never speaks of an alienage.  So at night when they camp in the wilds, she does not sit closer to him than to the human and the dwarf; she sits alone, staring deep into the fire, and misses the smells of home.

 

* * *

 

She doesn’t know if she’ll ever get used to battle.  Keeper Deshanna trained her skills with rogue spirits, but when she spies the mage and the templar fighting in the gloaming, her mouth goes dry and her stomach shudders.  The demons in Haven were one thing.  But living people?

_They’re dangerous_ , she reminds herself.   _They’re hurting the innocent._ She tries to remember the burned corpse of a woman they’d passed in the gully, just a few hours ago.   _They might be  the ones who killed her._

She turns anxiously to Varric, who is unloading the behemoth crossbow from his back and pulling its crank.  Solas stands beside them with a barrier shimmering at the head of his staff; Cassandra hefts her shield and raises her sword.

Namira clenches her staff.  Lightning crackles from her fist, humming into existence this side of the Veil, ready to follow her will.  She swallows, trembling, and the storm shatters between the dueling mage and templar, lightning coruscating over their bodies.

The mage reels, brandishing his staff as Cassandra charges.  The templar, though, staggers toward Solas and Namira.  Namira readies another bolt from the Fade --

And then it’s as if the Fade collapses around her, mana vanished, the world gone grey and limp, the air rushing out of her lungs.  She clutches her staff as if drowning, hoping, begging it will keep her afloat in this empty void --

A well-placed arrow from Varric strikes the templar in the throat, and the prison of grey disappears.  The templar falls, and Namira stands there, gasping, horrified, as Cassandra routs the mage.

“What was that?” she chokes to Solas, who merely looks rumpled and irritated.

“It was a dispel field,” he says matter-of-factly.  “It is their greatest weapon against mages in the field; suppression of all magic.  Lyrium use augments it, of course.  Luckily, that templar had not seen battle against a competent mage in some time.”

“Right,” Namira says, drawing herself up as if unfazed.  She takes a deep breath.  Has air tasted so sweet before?  

Keeper Deshanna has warned her, of course, of the dangers of human templars… but never had anyone in the clan encountered one in battle.  The clan moves regularly, and focuses its magic on protective wards; there was little for templars to be concerned by.  The Chantry warriors were nearly as distant, and unlikely, threats as Fen’Harel.  

Namira is shaken.   _Am I a competent mage?_   The words cut like a wound.  Is she not the First of her clan?  Has all of her training been for nought?

Not for the first time she thinks _I can’t do this._

 

* * *

 

It is Varric who makes the first overture.

She nearly doesn’t recognize it for what it is, at first.  This does not surprise her.  At home, among her clan, she is well-known for being a bit… obtuse.

“How are you holding up with all of this, anyway?” he asks.  It’s an aside, tossed out as he clambers over a boulder in their path, grunting a little as he does.  It must be difficult sometimes, she thinks, being a dwarf.

She shrugs.  Doesn’t want to reveal too much.  He doesn’t seem to get on with Cassandra or Solas, but what if he reports back to them in some way?  “I’m fine.”

Varric casts a glance back over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised so high they nearly vanish into his hairline.  “Really.”

“Yes.”

“The sky gets a giant hole torn in it, everyone thinks you did it, and your hand is glowing green with magic shit you can’t undo.  Not to mention you’re working for the Inquisition of a religion your people think is bullshit.  Oh, and that mark thing might kill you.  Sure you’re fine?” asks Varric.

Namira blinks.  Slowly.  “You didn’t have to put it like that,” she says after a moment.

Varric just laughs, and after a moment, Namira laughs too.  It  _is_  bullshit.

 

* * *

 

That night, while Solas and Varric slumber, Namira goes to Cassandra.  She wants to be fine.  More than that, she wants to be  _ready._

“This is difficult for me to ask… but I need your help,” she says, voice soft amidst the crackling flames of the campfire.

Cassandra shifts her position, sitting atop folded legs.  “We are on the same side,” she says.  “What is it you need, Herald?”

_Herald._  She will have to ask the others about the title another time.  It disturbs her far more than  _First_ or even  _Keeper._

“You fight like a templar, Cassandra.  Are you --?”

“I am a Seeker,” says Cassandra.  “My duty shares similarities with the skills of the templar, but in truth, I am able to fight both templar and mage with my abilities.”

“Teach me, then,” Namira breathes, gazing into the firelight.  The flames flicker, gold and orange and blue against the inky darkness of the night.  For a moment, she can almost pretend it is a campfire outside an aravel; just for a moment.  “Teach me how to fight templars.”

 

* * *

 

Namira Lavellan is clumsy; she is learning, though, in training sessions with Cassandra, in jokes with Varric, in orchestrating her magic with Solas’.  They all fight together now, instead of four units working separately; the first time that Solas’ ice magic combines with a flash of her lightning, it makes Varric crow and Cassandra flash a rare smile.  Solas himself bends his head in an admiring nod.  Rogue templars, mad mages, they scatter or fall before them.  Four in concert are a true threat.  

One evening as the sun slips behind the hills, Namira carefully plucks blossoms of crystal grace from fallen nurse logs, preserving them in her pack for later potion crafting.  Oddly enough it is Cassandra who knows their name.  Apparently there are many tales of their beauty in the shemlen lands, and Namira can see why.  

Their smell is clean and bright and sweet, and it lingers on her hands well into the next day.  The mark still shimmers and tingles in her palm, glowing the bright green of Fade-light, but its strangeness is tempered by the delicate scent of blue flowers.

Namira is still learning, yes; there is a whole world here beyond what she has known.  But perhaps, she tells herself, this is the kind of bullshit she can handle.


End file.
